In fields where high stiffness-to-weight ratio materials are needed, aluminum-lithium alloys have achieved wide acceptance; however, in this field, producers of aluminum alloys are reluctant to recycle these alloys due to the fact that any introduction of Li into conventional Al alloy melts causes deleterious effects such as room temperature embrittlement or casting porosity.
Nevertheless, contemporary technology affords two principle approaches to removing Li. One approach utilizes the procedure of flux additions during melting of the scrap material followed by subsequent Li recovery from the slag. The next approach utilizes the procedure of vacuum distillation of the Li from bulk scrap during melting. Both of the procedures employed by current technology for Li removal require either additional processing steps or expensive vacuum distillation equipment.
Therefore, there is a need for a procedure that removes and recovers Li from Al-Li or Li-Al alloys that is inherently safer, more economical and characterized by fewer processing steps. Such a procedure would permit the Li-free aluminum fraction to be recycled in a conventional way and thereby provide a more direct technological process for recovery of Li metal values.